Abstract
AMONG THE FLOWER PAINTINGS by Ch'ien Hsuan (ca. 1235-before 1307) are several accompanied by the artist's poems. In Pear Blossoms, a handscroll in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ch'ien's poem follows an image of six clusters of flowers growing from a stark, knobby branch (Figures 6, 7).' This work, which according to a fifteenth-century colophon dates from Ch'ien's old age,2 is not only one of the most visually appealing of his flower paintings, but is also one in which the interaction of poetry and painting achieves a richness and complexity of meaning new in Chinese art. The relationship between words and images in Ch'ien's landscape painting is the subject of two recent studies;3 a similar and equally important relationship in his flower painting has not yet been analyzed. Focusing on the Metropolitan Museum handscroll and the tradition to which it be-
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